Statistics
2 billion live in poverty
700 million live in extreme poverty
40 million live in extreme poverty in America
22,000 children die daily due to poverty
$1,500 in food thrown away
160 billion pounds of food waste per year
Is there a
Why We Fast?
To
To grow in
To amplify our
To Stand with the
“‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’” —Isaiah 58.3
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?” —Isaiah 58.3-5
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” —Isaiah 58.6-7
Isaiah’s Motivation for Fasting
- Fight Injustice
- Free from Oppression
- Share Food with the Hungry
- Provide Shelter
- Clothe the Naked
- Meet Practical Needs
“Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say: Here am I.” —Isaiah 58.8-9
“Break your bread for those who are hungry, said Isaiah, do not believe that fasting suffices. Fasting chastises you, but it does not refresh the other…Do you wish your prayer to reach God? Give it two wings, fasting and almsgiving.” —St. Augustine Almsgiving or Works of Mercy: Generosity, Service, & Justice.
“…estimate the cost of the food you would have eaten on that day and give that amount to a widow or orphan or someone in need. Be humble in this way, that the one who receives something because of your humility may fill his soul and pray to the Lord for you.” —Shepherd of Hermas
“Give to the hungry what you deny your own appetite.” —St. Gregory of Nyssa
“Let us fast in such a way that we lavish our lunches upon the poor, so that we may not store up in our purses what we intended to eat, but rather in the stomachs of the poor.” —St. Gregory of Nyssa
Fasting is a way to love
and love our
at the same time.
1. To
2. To
“How shall we have the means to help our brother who is in need? We can do without those unnecessary things which become habits, cigarettes, liquor, coffee, tea, candy, sodas, soft drinks, and those foods at meals which only titillate the palate. We all have these habits, the youngest and the oldest. And we have to die to ourselves in order to live, we have to put off the old man and put on Christ.” —Dorothy Day
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” —1st John 3.16-18
3. To
“Food joins humans to other humans because we share meals together. Whenever we give up food intentionally, we refrain from relationships. When a group protests by fasting, they both negate one relationship — with the haves — and they affirm another relationship — with the have-nots. And since the structures of power always have sufficient food, fasting is not only refusing relationship, but it is also protesting the power structures that exist.” —Scot McKnight
“It is impossible to engage in spiritual conflict, without the previous subjugation of the appetite.” —St. Gregory the Great
This last type of fasting will have an effect not just on the
“there is no needy person among them.” —Acts 4:34
Fasting can transform our relationship…
To
To our
To
To the
Rule of Life
- Sabbath
- Prayer
- Fasting
- Solitude
- Generosity
- Scripture
- Community
- Service
- Witness
- Eat, Fast, & Feast
“Americans do not know how to feast because they do not know how to fast. Especially if we fast on behalf of those who don’t have enough and share our plenty with them, our feasting will be much more meaningful.” – Marva J. Dawn
Practice: Fast for one full day until sundown, but give the money you would have spent on food to the poor.
Fasting is